The Shadows That Linger (Mar. 2021)
Link to product website
Link to playable game on Itch.io




In this spiritual mystery game, solve your sister's murder by
channeling your crystal ball to learn from ethereal shadows.
My roles: Game Designer / Producer
My responsibilities include:
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Designing clue systems and thematically immersive features such as:
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Shadow Vision - a cursor-proximity-based clue-searching mechanic that highlights hidden items with spiritual connections. I designed it this way because my goal was to create a clue system that feels unique for a mystery game while still being understandable for players, and that is challenging but also supports the narrative. The challenge of working with this mechanic gave me more experience in a holistic design process
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Shadow Dialogue - an interrogative ability that allows you to perceive the true forms of characters' shadows which possess their darkest secrets. This feature's design required much iteration because I had to make it easy enough to use while also balancing its involvement in the energy system as well as progressing the narrative. I ended up turning this ability into a unique dialogue option in conversations, lowering the energy cost of its usage, and making its function be to hint at lies told by the characters
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Managing and updating the game design document
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Holding the game's vision and effectively communicating it to my teammates:
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I helped the team transition to total online communication as we are now working remotely in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. For a year now, I've been holding our meetings via Zoom and ensuring the team messages each other more frequently on Slack
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Making design adjustments based off playtester feedback:
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For example, after hearing from our playtesters that the game's dialogue format was too confusing, I improved the structure by designing a conversation "home screen" that divides the player's responses into 3 organized categories of conversation topics (clues, personal life, & the victim), each of which holds the player's related dialogue options. We have received better feedback on the format since
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Overseeing and working together with a 10-person team
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Conducting frequent team meetings
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Facilitating and ensuring communication between different team divisions (e.g. narrative team & programming team, or art team & audio team)
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Assigning tasks to teammates of various disciplines
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Monitoring project development and analyzing weekly Sprint Reports
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Accomplishments:
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Demoed at GDEX's 2020 Exhibitor Showcase
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Successfully pitched game at the IU Media School's Shark Tank game design pitch competition (2019) to a panel of game industry veterans (Paul Stephanouk, Dave Rohrl, and Ray Holmes) and IU's Game Design department faculty, receiving approval to continue our project into development


The Widower (2019)
Link to playable prototype
In this choose-your-own-adventure thriller game, unravel alternate realities to unmask an evil entity.
My role: Solo Developer
My responsibilities:
- Designed a "reverse-branching narrative" where the player's choices alter characters' backstories, which are revealed through 8 different endings:
- Depending on your choices, the ominous "Widower" takes on a unique form such as a masked killer, a demon, or a family member. Even the player character can turn out to be The Widower
- Created adaptive music that layers with each of the player's possible choices:
- My goal was to create a more immersive experience by having the tone build as the player progresses through the different story paths
- Edited sound effects to build a suspenseful atmosphere
- Designed UI of text layout and buttons
- Programmed different game controls options
- Built versions in separate game engines (Unity and Construct 3)